And one of them smote the servant of the high priest, and cut off his right ear. And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye
thus far.
And he touched his ear, and healed him.
Luke 22: 50-51
Was it good luck
to be Malchus,
to stand close enough
to take the opening cut
at the end of the story,
to behold the deaf ear
on the ground
curling toward heaven, then
to be made whole
again, one might almost say holy,
or after the wound, unable to abandon
one life for another, to remain
untouched, back away, fade
into the crowd?